Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The World Bank, in collaboration with the Taraba state government, has completed the training of over 2,469 teachers on trauma healing to enable teachers handle traumatised school children in communities affected by crises on Friday ended across three centres in the state.
Declaring the five days workshop which began on Monday closed, Governor Darius Ishaku represented by the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education, Mr. Samson Ada thanked the World Bank for their support in rebuilding communities affected by crisis in the north east.
Ishaku said the workshop would help teachers in the state to handle traumatised children affected by Boko Haram and other crises in the region.
According to him, the workshop with the theme: Psychosocial Support and Pedagogy for Basic Education Teachers in Conflict and Crisis Environments would compliment the state government investment in the educational sector and urged participants to make judicious use of the knowledge gained during the one week workshop.
Earlier, Taraba State Education Management Information System Officer, Mr. Job Julius said the programme was aimed at helping teachers to cope with traumatised children and how to get such children bounce back to their normal lives.
He added that 2460 teachers participated in the phase III of the training which held in Gembu, Bali and Wukari centers.
According to him, the programme had last week concluded training of participants in Karim Lamido and Jalingo Centres, with the aim of giving teachers basic knowledge on psychosocial supports, healing and pedagogy for victims of trauma in public primary schools.
Representative of Summit Management Development Services, the consultant that handled the training, Mr. Olaoye Oyewole said his company was proud to be part of the training and expressed optimism that the teachers would step down the training to the school children for the development of education in the state.
“The essence is that if traumatised children are well managed they will grow up as better citizens which will help in building a peaceful society and a strong economy for the country in the future,” he said.
Some of the participants including Aboki Mustapha, Margaret Nev and Vincent Okoh who spoke to our correspondent, thanked the organizers of the workshop, saying it will go a long way to help basic education teachers advance their teaching methods and adopt new strategies in handling children with special needs.